Make Nice Mission The Web Of Life

A few months ago we started a project where we took classic children’s books and recycled them into art projects to display in our homes. One book that we loved too much to let sit and collect dust was The Little Island, by Margaret Wise Brown. When we sat down with the ladies at HEART and discussed their K-3 Environmental Ethics program, we were surprised to see that they also had a soft spot for the classic book and had featured it in a lesson to teach their students about the Web of Life.

WHAT IS THE WEB OF LIFE?

In our world, there are lots of different species that live and co-exist. Humans, animals and plants live together and need many of the same things to survive...particularly eachother!

The majority of animals in our world are herbivores, surviving only on plants. From these plants come seeds and nuts which feed birds and squirrels. When seeds and nuts are burried or dropped by these animals, they are showered with water and sunlight, and grow into more plants, allowing the cycle to continue.

Then there are the carnivores - meat eaters - like the majority of humans. There are predators (who hunt for animals for their food) and scavengers (who don't hunt but rather eat animal carcasses found on the ground). The list of predators and scavegers is vast, with all of the animals eating one other at some point in time. There is no such thing as a "top" in the food chain but instead, a web of cyclicle events. The scavengers that munch on the carcasses, leave some parts behind for the bugs and insects. What is left in the end becomes soil, providing nutrients that lead to the growth of more plants.

TEACHING the web of life

Using The Little Island as inspiration, the teachers at H.E.A.R.T. create a web of life. Students become aware of the way our environment connects and understand why it’s so important to conserve nature. Once they understand that the sun allows the trees to grow, the trees provide homes for animals, the animals live off the plants and the plants are grown by the sun, they slowly see the circle of life and begin to realize how many aspects of the world can be damaged through one simple action.